GH1 Not as I had hoped

[Paul Nixon]

Originally Posted by Adrian Frearson

Is this thread actually going anywhere? Personally, I've seen some great footage out of this camera, as well as some lousy. Since it hasn't started shipping yet, outside of Japan, and hasn't been tested seriously against any other "pro" cameras, I think the whole debate is a little premature. Each to there own though.

I've seen enough to know that it is probably going to be better than I had anticipated image wise, for what I wanted from it. If anyone expects this camera to perform like a professional cinema camera then be prepared for serious disappointment.
FWIW, some film cameras shoot with shutters that don't always match the magic 24p/48th number. It still looks like film.

I disagree - if it hasn't shipped yet then the discussion is paramount, especially if Panasonic MIGHT BE LISTENING. It's possible they could take the good comments and go back and make a firmware upgrade prior to shipping that addresses the shortcomings people are talking about. Hey, I said it's possible. ;)

[Adrian Frearson]

Paul, I don't think that the cameras that will be shipping in the next few weeks would have a
firmware update installed before shipping, but I hope I'm proven wrong. A firmware update could happen at some point, if Panasonic think they need to. The point is we don't know enough from the few camera native files that are around to make a considered evaluation of these "limitations". Most of these clips are from people who've only had the camera a few days and so some of these artifacts that are being seen could be due to a number of factors, including a weak codec. The fact remains that the few pro shooters who've shot with the camera, have shown that it will produce images far better than it has any right to.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Canon have just announced a manual control update for the 5dII, Canon have been listening and watching the competition I'm sure. Exciting times!

[Jose A. Garcia]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

The reason these camera are the way they are is that Japan doesn't suffer from the "I want to be a FILMmaker affliction." All prime-time narrative drama in Asia is shot at i60. At 60i, they have no need for a shallow DOF to hide background motion judder because there is no judder.

No way! All my life using shallow DOF in photography and video to attract attention to a subject and now I realize I was wrong!! The main purpose of shallow DOF is to hide background motion judder!!

[Paul Nixon]

Originally Posted by Adrian Frearson

Paul, I don't think that the cameras that will be shipping in the next few weeks would have a
firmware update installed before shipping, but I hope I'm proven wrong. A firmware update could happen at some point, if Panasonic think they need to. The point is we don't know enough from the few camera native files that are around to make a considered evaluation of these "limitations". Most of these clips are from people who've only had the camera a few days and so some of these artifacts that are being seen could be due to a number of factors, including a weak codec. The fact remains that the few pro shooters who've shot with the camera, have shown that it will produce images far better than it has any right to.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Canon have just announced a manual control update for the 5dII, Canon have been listening and watching the competition I'm sure. Exciting times!

Exciting times indeed! This just seems overall like a prayer answered and, as a non-professional, I am very excited. I've been farting around with the DoF adapters with varying degrees of success and am looking forward to see the GH1 in "action" (properly reviewed).

I don't know where Panasonic is in terms of shipping the GH1, and you are probably correct that they won't include the update prior to shipping, but if the current shortfalls are serious enough to cast doubt on the GH1's capabilities or desirability, I have to wonder how willing Panasonic would be to fix things after the fact.

BTW, does anyone have any info on the Samsung NX?

[Paul Nixon]

I've seen many here talk about AVCHD being superior to HDV. This bothered me because I could have sworn the reverse was true not too long ago. I came across the following:

Are AVCHD camcorders the next HD lie? | George Ou | ZDNet.com

What's missing?

[Harrison Murchison]

Originally Posted by Paul Nixon

I've seen many here talk about AVCHD being superior to HDV. This bothered me because I could have sworn the reverse was true not too long ago. I came across the following:

Are AVCHD camcorders the next HD lie? | George Ou | ZDNet.com

What's missing?

I think we all thought AVCHD would be superior but then at the consumer level we got tiny sensors and lower than the max AVCHD bitrates.

AVCHD was a few years too early. It's design is great for low storage/bandwidth solutions but today we have NAND technology that is faster and we should be using a codec that's easier to edit and one that captures more information.

[Paul Nixon]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

I think we all thought AVCHD would be superior but then at the consumer level we got tiny sensors and lower than the max AVCHD bitrates.

Which, once again, begs the question - is the GH1 with AVCHD and low-bitrate better than my HC1 HDV for the same kinds of shots?

From what I've seen I have to say the answer is a resounding yes, yes, YES! Until, of course, I see the shots being complained about. Then I second guess my impulse and wonder what the end results are going to be like for the kinds of "movies" I shoot.

I use a camcorder to capture history - kids growing up, karate tournaments, vacations.

I also use a camcorder to make "creative" home movies. I've been trying to use a DoF adapter, but being unable to afford something professional I've ended up with making my own followed by an inexpensive buy which works quite well now that I've replaced the gg. But I don't have follow-focus, so I am still sometimes futzing with the focus.

The GH1 has full-time AF - perfect!

From what I've seen of the low-light performance, the GH1 is also perfect (compared with my HC1 and HV-30).

AVCHD does take a substantial amount of horsepower to edit, a lot more than HDV if my Kodak Z6 is anything to go by. But I'll manage. (would be nice to have a hardware solution).

And the 24pin60i - my HV30 has that and it's a pain because Canon neglected to include the flags, so Liquid can't handle the footage directly. Am I going to run into the same issue when shooting 24p?

And does anyone know how much footage you can shoot at a time and what's it limited by?

[Brian Standing]

The big advantage of AVCHD is that there are already some software solutions out there to help with editing. Neo Scene from Cineform, for example, already ingests AVCHD (or HDV, for that matter) files, does 24p pulldown and converts it to easy to edit, virtually lossless AVI or MOV files. If it doesn't already work with the GH-1 files, I suspect it's will in the next Cineform update.

Think of AVCHD as purely an acquistion format -- kind of like film negative. Any manipulation is done on the "print" or digital intermediate.

[Paul Nixon]

Originally Posted by Brian Standing

The big advantage of AVCHD is that there are already some software solutions out there to help with editing. Neo Scene from Cineform, for example, already ingests AVCHD (or HDV, for that matter) files, does 24p pulldown and converts it to easy to edit, virtually lossless AVI or MOV files. If it doesn't already work with the GH-1 files, I suspect it's will in the next Cineform update.

Think of AVCHD as purely an acquistion format -- kind of like film negative. Any manipulation is done on the "print" or digital intermediate.

Huh? The advantage of AVCHD over what with regards to software solutions? Are there packages that do AVCHD and not HDV? That doesn't sound right at all.

I bought Neo to work with my HV30. It's definitely different from Liquid but it does the job. Both seem to work with my little Kodak Zi6, but OMG the processing power needed on those files is something one needs to see to be believed! AVCHD may be 2x more efficient, spacewise, but it's 4x less efficient timewise (based purely on my very limited experience - the Zi6). Now that I think about it, Neo handles the Zi6 video but not the audio. I don't know why.

However, if the GH1 proves to be the answer to my prayers (and, again, I'm not shooting professional movies so I think my expectations may be a bit lower), then I might up the ante, though a C2D 3GHz xtreme CPU, 4GB RAM, and multiple TB's of SATA-2 drives in a system that uses almost as much electricity as my AC (and I'm in the Phoenix area) - yeah, I'm a bit reluctant and a bit annoyed that I'd need even more power. If someone could make me believe the issue was the software, I'd be overjoyed.

[Paul Nixon]

Speaking of the GH1 - the "pre-order" price is $1499. Come June and it hits the market, will that price suddenly go up? Will it go down? What *usually* happens?

[Brian Standing]

I meant AVCHD vs., say M-JPEG, not HDV.

That's odd that you're having so much difficulty editing Cineform files. Your specs far exceed mine, and I have little difficulty using Cineform AVI files. What NLE are you using? I'm using Vegas 8.0c.

[Paul Nixon]

Originally Posted by Brian Standing

I meant AVCHD vs., say M-JPEG, not HDV.

That's odd that you're having so much difficulty editing Cineform files. Your specs far exceed mine, and I have little difficulty using Cineform AVI files. What NLE are you using? I'm using Vegas 8.0c.

As I said, the only experience I have with h264/AVCHD is the Kodak Zi6. But it does not produce AVI output - instead, it uses MOV.

Liquid has to convert this to something it understands, and that takes a long time.

Neo doesn't understand the audio for some reason. It shows it being there, but always puts it in a non-audio track.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Paul Nixon

Liquid has to convert this to something it understands, and that takes a long time.

Hi Paul,

I am also still using Liquid, which was great at the time it came out but unfortunately seems utterly neglected (is it officially discontinued?).

Liquid transcoding it yet another time totally defies the purpose of Cineform I think. What I do instead (downloaded some GH1 files to try the workflow) is to encode to HDV compatible MPEG with 1.5 to twice the datarate. I use TMPG Enc. which is recognised as one of the best MPEG encoders. After that I can edit the footage just like HDV, which works absolutely great on Liquid (and fully native).
It's nowhere near a pure cineform workflow but a lot better than AVCHD -> Cineform -> Mysterious Codec -> Liquid. And, pixel peeping I could hardly see the difference between the AVCHD original and the double datarate HDV (apart from x-axis resultion in 1080).

Hope that helps,

Thomas

[Bert Na]

According to the manual, on page 185, in AVCHD mode you can record up to the capacity of the memory card or 1 h with a 8GB card. In motion JPEG mode, the maximum is 2GB or about 8 min.

Originally Posted by Paul Nixon

<...>
And does anyone know how much footage you can shoot at a time and what's it limited by?

[Paul Nixon]

Originally Posted by Bert Na

According to the manual, on page 185, in AVCHD mode you can record up to the capacity of the memory card or 1 h with a 8GB card. In motion JPEG mode, the maximum is 2GB or about 8 min.

Thanks Bert.

I see that the camera will accept up to 32GB cards, so time shouldn't be an issue.